Lynda Lucas records 13-track demo in Dublin

Editor’s Note: “Underground Nashville” covers artists, authors, musicians, poets, political figures, and other compelling people and happenings not typically covered by the mainstream Nashville media. It also presents reflections and commentary from an underground/indie perspective. As I told ‘The Tennessean’ in 2008, “since moving to Nashville twenty-five years ago, I have met people whose lives do not remotely reflect the caricature of what many outside our city presume to be a ‘Nashvillian’ or the Nashville experience.” “Underground Nashville” thus explores the soul of the city, not its surface—offering “thoughts from the shadows of a great American city.”

Dave Carew

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Lynda Lucas records 13-track demo in Dublin

By Dave Carew

It’s not every day I receive a package from Dublin, Ireland, but that’s exactly what happened a few days ago. When I opened it, I discovered, to my delight, it was the new 13-song demo CD from Lynda Lucas, the Irish singer-songwriter who dazzled at last year’s Gram Parsons Tribute Concert in Nashville. Lynda was kind enough to include me on the mailing list to receive her new work.

To me, the mark of a truly great singer is someone whose voice is so completely compelling it doesn’t NEED much instrumental backing . . . so compelling you’re barely AWARE there is no band supporting the vocal. That’s exactly the experience you have when you listen to Lynda’s newly recorded covers and original tunes.

I’ll have lots of additional thoughts about Lynda’s new demo next week in “Underground Nashville.” Until then, do yourself a favor and go to YouTube, then enter “Lynda Lucas — Image of Me” in the search engine. “Image of Me” was written by Gram Parsons and was featured on Burrito Deluxe, the last of The Flying Burrito Brothers albums featuring Gram. This version by Lynda Lucas is, to me, the finest, most heart-felt version of this song ever recorded.

David M. (Dave) Carew is editor of “Underground Nashville” and the author of the novels “Everything Means Nothing to Me: A Novel of Underground Nashville” and “Voice from the Gutter.” He also is a freelance book editor, publicist, and copywriter.